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CAMPAIGN JOURNAL: They were “miserable”. They wanted your money. They thought you were “pathetic” or “sheep”.
This was Judith Collins’ message to her party faithful at a public meeting in Hamilton on Wednesday, a National-controlled city that the party is at grave risk of losing this weekend.
Collins was having a blast, speeding up the audience against his opponents outside the room and the media in it.
She said voters had an easy, but important, choice in choosing between National and the other “miserable” parties.
ROSA WOODS / Things
National faces a fight from a growing ACT party and the New Tories get some votes too. File photo.
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* Election 2020: Judith Collins tries to make the estate tax a problem and asks voters to trust her more than Jacinda Ardern.
“You choose a National Party that really has trust and faith in the people of New Zealand. Or you choose one of those others, who are miserable. Who spend their lives thinking about how terrible it is. No, it is not! We live in a fabulous country! “
”Don’t waste your vote on any party. Just vote National “.
He said the audience should understand that many other minor parties might not be present after the elections, which was “possibly a good thing.”
“I have never felt as comfortable with MMP as some of you. But I’ll tell you what there is: a choice. Because we are national. We are not Labor. “
National is currently facing some loss of ground on its right wing as ACT raises at the polls and the new smaller Conservatives carry out a vigorous campaign.
Mark Taylor / Stuff
Collins said he still kept his legal practice certificate current.
He continued his week-long push against the Green Party wealth tax, which Labor leader Jacinda Ardern has dismissed, saying Ardern would go along with his word.
Collins raised, to the horror of the room, the possibility that Green Party co-leaders James Shaw or Marama Davidson were deputy prime minister, waiting for an embarrassing pause before mentioning Davidson.
“These people who said that the tax is love. Too much love, I think, ”he said.
She said that Shaw and Davidson, whose first names she mispronounced, had never paid a lot of taxes before coming to politics, before speeding up to say New Zealanders weren’t “pathetic” enough to want a wealth tax or to blame to the government for its problems.
“Are we that pathetic? Are we sheep? Or are we people? I think we are people! “
She said other parties should “stop telling young people they can’t achieve” and “stop telling people in their 20s and 30s that they can’t train because they are too old.”
The media in the room received frequent attacks from the audience and some scolding from Collins.
He asked journalists to verify his statements “so that they would have something to do.” At his subsequent press conference, Collins yelled at a reporter who pointed out that Ardern had scrapped the wealth tax he was campaigning against, and asked if he was now speaking for Ardern.
Chris McKeen / Stuff
Judith Collins spoke with Stuff earlier Wednesday about her hopes for the final days of the campaign.
When Ardern was told that his attacks on the estate tax were “desperate,” Collins said that Ardern “shouldn’t use nicknames.
Collins defended the idea that the Green co-leaders would not have paid any taxes before coming to Parliament, since “most of them are unemployed, he would have thought.”
He said his supporters should be “very concerned” about the possibility that Davidson is in power, as this would be “a challenge for the country.”
The national leader has been criticized in recent days for her comments on obesity, which she says is due to “personal responsibility” and is “generally a weakness.”
He stood firm in the comments Wednesday, saying it was important to tell people that they could take charge of their lives.
On a visit to the Hamilton law firm after the community meeting, Collins finished a speech to a group of young professionals and noted that he still had the power to take charge of his life as he kept his legal practice certificate current.
“I always like to keep my practice certificate. You know why? Because that makes me brave in politics, it’s always knowing that there is something more than what I do now, ”Collins said.
“Always have something to lean on.”
National Congressman Tim Macindoe may have to turn to his law degree as he faces a difficult career at Hamilton West.
The seat is a classic “benchmark” and has voted for a deputy from the party that wins the most votes nationwide in 16 of the last 17 elections.
Despite this, and the attacks on his opponents, Collins said he felt good about the campaign.
“Nobody is as cheerful as the National Party.”
